About Me

Experience Summary

Hi. I am Joe Riley, and I have my Masters in Civil Engineering from UC Davis with an emphasis in structures. Before getting my masters, I worked as a structural engineer for Arup in Los Angeles. My philosophy on tutoring is as follows: I believe there are essentially 2 characteristics that make a great teacher/tutor: Knowledgeable and adaptable. The first is obvious but important. A tutor must know the subject they tutor. To me, this means frequently revisiting concepts, thinking about them from different angles and looking at how they relate to the world around us. Being knowledgeable means having many connections and associations to a subject.
Within the context of tutoring, being adaptable is just as important as being knowledgeable. This means communicating with your students to learn how they learn. Knowing how a student learns enables the tutor to introduce a concept or subject from a comfortable place before tying in the more challenging aspects of a subject. For example, a typical physics problem often involves reading comprehension, visualization, and application of mathematics. Knowing how the strengths vary from aspect to aspect and teaching accordingly ensures efficient learning. This process can be ongoing, so effective communication and adaptation is key.
I learned about my own talent and love for tutoring while in college. I attended an engineering program through Washington University and University of Missouri St. Louis. While studying with others, I quickly found myself leading the reviews and discussions of the material. This led me to work as an algebra, trigonometry, and Calculus tutor and teachers assistant in The Math Technology Learning Center at The University of Missouri St. Louis. This entailed answering questions students had while doing their homework in a computer classroom setting.
I quickly moved on to tutor one-on-one in a more focused, quality over quantity, approach. I tutored college engineering student in Statics, Dynamics, Mechanics of Materials, and Structural Design and Analysis. This enabled me to be more creative in my approach and exercise skills in presenting a concept from start to finish. Along the way, tutoring has become a passion. I love seeing people succeed and enjoy being a part of it.

Teaching Style

Discussion of topic, review of issues student is having, do some practice problems or homework problems.